‘Probably no more than you can spare.’ I propped myself up a little more on the bed. ‘Were you getting worried?’
‘I think you stretched the terms of your commission worse than a squad bitch’s asshole, lieutenant. AWOL two months on a datastack posting. Gone after something that might be worth this whole fucking war. Back later. That’s a little vague.’
‘Accurate, though.’
‘Is it?’ He seated himself on the edge of the bed, chameleochrome coveralls shifting to match the quilt pattern. The recent scar tissue across forehead and cheek tugged as he frowned. ‘Is it a warship?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Deployable?’
I considered. ‘Dependent on the archaeologue support you’ve got to hand, I’d say yes, probably.’
‘And how’s your current archaeologue support?’
I glanced across the open space of the bubblefab to where Tanya Wardani lay curled up under a sheet-thin insulating quilt. Like the rest of the Nagini gang survivors, she’d been lightly sedated. The medic who did it had said she was stable, but not likely to live much longer than me.
‘Wasted.’ I started coughing, couldn’t easily stop. Carrera waited it out. Handed me a wipe when I finished. I gestured weakly as I cleaned my mouth. ‘Just like the rest of us. How’s yours?’
‘We have no archaeologue aboard currently, unless you count Sandor Mitchell.’
‘I don’t. That’s a man with a hobby, not an archaeologue. How come you didn’t come Scratcher-equipped, Isaac?’ Schneider must have told you what you were buying into. I weighed it up, split-second, and decided not to give up that particular piece of information yet. I didn’t know what value it held, if any, but when you’re down to your last harpoon clip, you don’t go firing at fins. ‘You must have had some idea what you were buying into here.’
He shook his head.
‘Corporate backers, Takeshi. Tower-dweller scum. You get no more air from people like that than you absolutely need to get aboard. All I knew until today was that Hand was into something big, and if the Wedge brought back a piece of it, it’d be made worth our while.’
‘Yeah, but they gave you the codes to the nanobe system. Something more valuable than that? On Sanction IV? Come on Isaac, you must have guessed what it was.’
He shrugged. ‘They named figures, that’s all. That’s how the Wedge works, you know that. Which reminds me. That’s Hand over by the door, right? The slim one.’
I nodded. Carrera wandered over and looked intently at the sleeping exec.
‘Yeah. Missing some weight off the pix I’ve got on stack.’ He paced the makeshift ward, glancing left and right at the other beds and the corpse in the corner. Through the ’meth rush and the weariness, I felt an old caution go itching along my nerves. ‘’Course, that’s not surprising, the rad count around here. I’m surprised any of you are still up and walking around.’
‘We’re not,’ I pointed out.
‘Right.’ His smile was pained. ‘Jesus, Takeshi. Why didn’t you hold back a couple of days? Could have halved your dosage. I’ve got everybody on standard anti-rad, we’ll all walk out of here with no worse than headaches.’
‘Not my call.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it was. Who’s the inactive?’
‘Sun Liping.’ It hurt more to look at her than I’d expected. Wolf pack allegiances are a slippery thing, it seems. ‘Systems officer.’
He grunted. ‘The others?’
‘Ameli Vongsavath, pilot officer.’ I pointed them out with a cocked finger and thumb. ‘Tanya Wardani, archaeologue, Jiang Jianping, Luc Deprez, both stealth ops.’
‘I see.’ Carrera frowned again and nodded in Vongsavath’s direction. ‘So if that’s your pilot, who was flying the assault launch when she blew?’
‘Guy called Schneider. He’s the one put me onto this whole gig in the first place. Fucking civilian pilot. He got rattled when the fireworks started out there. Took the ship, trashed Hansen, the guy we left on picket, with the ultravibe and then just blew hatches, left us to—’
‘He went alone?’
‘Yeah, unless you want to count the riders in the corpse locker. We lost two bodies to the nanobes before we went through. And we found another six on the other side. Oh, yeah and two more drowned in the trawler nets. Archaeologue team from back before the war, looks like.’
He wasn’t listening, just waiting until I stopped.
‘Yvette Cruickshank, Markus Sutjiadi. Those were the members of your team the nanobe system took out?’
‘Yeah.’ I tried for mild surprise. ‘You got a crew list? Jesus, these tower-dwellers of yours cut some mean corporate security.’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. These tower-dwellers are from the same tower as your friend over there. Rivals for promotion, in fact. Like I said, scum.’ There was a curious lack of venom in his voice as he said it, an absent tone that seemed to my Envoy antennae to carry with it a tinge of relief. ‘I don’t suppose you recovered stacks for any of the nanobe victims?’
‘No, why?’
‘Doesn’t matter. I didn’t really think you would. My clients tell me the system goes after any built components. Cannibalises them.’
‘Yeah, that’s what we guessed too.’ I spread my hands. ‘Isaac, even if we had recovered stacks, they’d have been vaporised with just about everything else aboard the Nagini.’
‘Yes, it was a remarkably complete explosion. Know anything about that, Takeshi?’
I summoned a grin. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think Lock Mit fast assault launches don’t vaporise in mid-air for no reason. And I think you seem less than outraged about this guy Schneider running out on you.’
‘Well, he is dead.’ Carrera folded his arms and looked at me. I sighed. ‘Yeah, OK. I mined the drives. I never trusted Schneider further than a clingfilm condom anyway.’
‘With cause, it appears. And lucky for you we came along, given the results.’ He got up, brushed his hands together. Something unpleasant definitely seemed to have slid off his screen. ‘You’d better get some rest, Takeshi. I’ll want a full debriefing tomorrow morning.’
‘Sure.’ I shrugged. ‘Not much more to tell, anyway.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? That’s not what my scanners say. We registered more energy discharged on the other side of that gate in the last seven hours than the sum generating cost of every hypercast to and from Sanction IV since it was settled. Myself, I’d say there’s a reasonable chunk of story left to tell.’
‘Oh, that.’ I gestured dismissively. ‘Well, you know, galactic ancients’ automated naval engagement. No big deal.’
‘Right.’
He was on his way out when something seemed to strike him.
‘Takeshi.’
I felt my senses tilt like mission time.
‘Yeah?’ Striving to stay casual.
‘Just out of curiosity. How did you plan to get back? After you blew the assault launch? You know, with the nanobes operative, the background rad count. No transport, except maybe that piece-of-shit trawler. What were you going to do, walk out? You’re barely two steps ahead of inactive, all of you. What the hell kind of strategy was blowing your only available ride out?’
I tried to think back. The whole situation, the upward-sucking vertigo of the Martian ship’s empty corridors and chambers, the mummified gaze of the corpses and the battle with weapons of unimaginable power raging outside – all of it seemed to have receded an immense distance into the past. I suppose I could have yanked it all back in with Envoy focus, but there was something dark and cold in the way, advising against it. I shook my head.